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November 27, 1986

33rd Parliament, 2nd Session

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Hansard Transcripts

L071 - Thu 27 Nov 1986 / Jeu 27 nov 1986

ORDERS OF THE DAY

PRIVATE MEMBERS' PUBLIC BUSINESS

LABOUR RELATIONS AMENDMENT ACT

PROPERTY RIGHTS

LABOUR RELATIONS AMENDMENT ACT

PROPERTY RIGHTS

AFTERNOON SITTING

MEMBERS' STATEMENTS

HIGHWAY CONSTRUCTION

UNEMPLOYMENT IN NORTHERN ONTARIO

SHORELINE PROTECTION

HIGHWAY SAFETY

OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY

LIBERAL-NEW DEMOCRATIC PARTY ACCORD

HIGHWAY CONSTRUCTION

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY AND RESPONSES

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION EXCHANGES

ARTS APPRECIATION DAY

ORAL QUESTIONS

PLANT SHUTDOWN

TARIFFS ON SOFTWOOD LUMBER

DAY CARE

LAYOFFS IN NORTHERN ONTARIO

WILDERNESS PARK

PROTECTION FOR USED CAR BUYERS

ALCOHOL ON OPP BOAT

REGIONAL MUNICIPALITY OF HAMILTON-WENTWORTH

DISCLOSURE OF ADOPTION INFORMATION

ALCOHOL ON OPP BOAT

SUNDAY RACING

HEALTH OF SENIOR CITIZENS

DAY CARE

INSURANCE RATES

HEALTH FUNDING

YOUNG OFFENDERS FACILITIES

GOVERNMENT INVENTORIES

PETITIONS

EQUALITY RIGHTS LEGISLATION

SUNDAY RACING

REPORT

STANDING COMMITTEE ON FINANCE AND ECONOMIC AFFAIRS

INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

MEMBERS' STANDARDS OF OFFICE ACT / LOI DE 1986 SUR LES NORMES EXIGÉES DES MEMBRES DE L'ASSEMBLÉE DANS L'EXERCICE DE LEURS FONCTIONS

COURTS OF JUSTICE AMENDMENT ACT

RENTAL ACCOMMODATION AGENTS ACT

PUBLIC OPINION POLLS

ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS IN ORDERS AND NOTICES AND RESPONSE TO PETITION

ORDERS OF THE DAY

THIRD READINGS

CITY OF BRANTFORD ACT

ITALO-CANADIAN CENTENNIAL CLUB ACT

CITY OF WINDSOR (WINDSOR-DETROIT TUNNEL) ACT

TRACO INVESTMENTS LIMITED ACT

EQUALITY RIGHTS STATUTE LAW AMENDMENT ACT (CONTINUED)

ROYAL ASSENT

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

The House met at 10 a.m.

Prayers.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

PRIVATE MEMBERS' PUBLIC BUSINESS

LABOUR RELATIONS AMENDMENT ACT

Mr. Mackenzie moved second reading of Bill 132,

An Act to amend the Labour Relations Act.

The Deputy Speaker: The honourable member has up to 20 minutes for his presentation and may reserve any portion of it for the windup.

Mr. Mackenzie: I am pleased to rise in the House to begin the debate on second reading of Bill 132. I trust that it will not end there and that the members of the two other parties will seriously consider supporting the bill.

It is important to start out by simply stating what Bill 132 does. The explanatory note on the bill is right on when it says:

"The purpose of the bill is to protect the jobs and rights of employees,

"(

a) where work previously done by those employees at an establishment is contracted to another employer;

"(

b) where work done at an establishment by employees of a contractor is contracted back to the owner of the establishment; or

"(

c) where one contractor is replaced by another."

The bill before us today is one of simple justice and fairness. It is a bill that is long overdue in the province. It would create no undue hardship for any segment of our population but would provide justice that is not now there to many employees in Ontario.

It is important that the members of this House understand who is involved, what they do and what the issue is, and I am appealing directly to my Liberal and Progressive Conservative colleagues.

First, we are dealing with probably 20,000 employees in the Metro Toronto area alone; I do not know what the figure would be across the province. We are dealing with those men and women, and they are largely women, who do the cleaning in the public and private buildings in our community. We are dealing with those in the health care area and in the food service industry, some of the harder-working and lower-paid employees in society.

I ask the members to think about this for a minute. We are dealing with people who do a job that we all appreciate is absolutely essential to a decent and civilized society. I ask the members to think for a moment what it would be like around these buildings if we did not have a staff of people who put in hours of hard work to keep the buildings clean so we can work with some comfort in the building.

I ask the members to think of many of the major buildings downtown, whether the Eaton Centre, the Toronto-Dominion Centre, First Canadian Place or the Aetna building, and what it would be like for the public in this country and in this province if those places were not kept clean and accessible to the public. I do not believe any of us would want to go into places like those if they were dirty and simply not inviting to us and to our families.

We are also dealing with a community of workers who are mostly new Canadians, mostly of ethnic background. Indeed, it is a fact that an awful lot of the workers in Toronto in this industry are Portuguese. It is not insignificant that this kind of job is hard but a little easier to obtain because many people do not want to do this kind of work. It is one of the first jobs that new Canadians find they are able to get in our province. They very quickly find, I am sorry to say, that the wages they are paid are low and that their working conditions, the shifts and night work, are not easy ones.

They find that they can be discriminated against very quickly and that their jobs are not secure, strictly apart from the wages and benefits they are paid.

There has been a substantial move among these workers to organize and to try to achieve a better standard of living. They are doing that in substantial numbers. When they do organize, obeying the law and living up to the Labour Relations Act, which says it is in the public interest of the province for workers to organize and achieve their rights for free collective bargaining, they find they have not got much once it is done.

Under the law of Ontario, a company can simply decide, "If they have those wages up from $5 an hour to $6, $7 or $7.50 or even $8, and if they have achieved some benefits, we can do away with that as soon as our specific contract ends by contracting in somebody else." That is the pattern, an unfortunate pattern, that has taken root in the province.

It is probably useful to quote briefly from a couple of editorials that state the case as well as or better than I could.

The Toronto Star of April 9, 1986 -- I will not read it all, because I have a number of things I want to say -- deals with the rather bitter Olympia and York dispute, which had to be settled by the personal intervention of the Premier (Mr. Peterson). The editorial concludes by saying:

"Ontario has `successor rights' legislation that protects unionized employees when a business is sold. The new owner must continue the collective agreement and ensure that seniority, benefits and wages are maintained. Queen's Park should give contract workers the same kind of protection. That way, workers won't stand to lose if their employer loses a contract."

A more recent editorial in the Toronto Star is dated July 17. It is worth reading the whole thing into the record, but I simply do not have the time. It says in part:

"Queen's Park already has laws to protect unionized employees when a business is sold. Under `successor rights' provisions of the Labour Relations Act, the new owner has to continue the collective agreement and ensure seniority, benefits and wages are maintained. Mackenzie's private member's bill would simply extend these protections to contract workers. It deserves serious consideration."

That says it as well as I could.

Why is the bill before us? It is because of frustration to some extent. I am not sure members in all the parties have clearly understood exactly what we are up against and why this issue has taken so long to achieve any action.

I should point out that on April 2, 1984, the leader of my party made a real plea to legislators to take a serious look at contracting out. He said:

"Contracting out means the employer contracts with a second company to do work which the employer has already contracted with unionized employees to perform. As a result, employees are dismissed by the employer and replaced by other workers. In some cases, the same workers are subsequently hired by the second firm, doing the same jobs as previously but at lower rates of pay, often without the protection of a union."

It goes on from there to list some of the discrimination these employees have run up against.

10:10

That was not the start. It goes back to 1976 or 1977, when my colleague the member for Bellwoods (Mr. McClellan) was raising this issue. We have some more recent statements worth putting on the record.

On November 7, 1983, in response to a question by the member for York South (Mr. Rae) on contracting out in nursing homes, the then Minister of Labour in the Conservative government answered:

"Mr. Speaker, I am aware of the circumstances. This is not the first time this has occurred over the past number of months.... It is a very complex matter of successor rights, and there is no simple solution to the problem. It is something our ministry is wrestling with at present."

They had been doing it long before that, but that is back in November 1983.

It is significant to put on the record the comments of the member for Windsor-Sandwich (Mr. Wrye) when he was still in opposition. On April 2, 1984, in a supplementary to a question from the member for York South to Bob Welch on contracting out, the member for Windsor-Sandwich said:

"Surely in this case, where it appears there is a pattern of contracting out in which the people affected are almost exclusively women, he should be willing to sit down with his colleagues and discuss some initiatives other than those which the Ontario Labour Relations Board may or may not take in the fullness of time. Surely the women of this province deserve something better than the kind of uncertainties so many of them are going through now.

"Is he prepared to sit down with his colleague the Minister of Labour...and have a little more formal chat about the kinds of initiatives this government might take to stop this kind of action?"

That was our current Minister of Labour (Mr. Wrye) speaking on April 2, 1984.

On March 21 , 1985, the then Premier, who was the member for Muskoka (Mr. F. S. Miller), in response to a letter from the member for York South, stated: "I can assure you that the matter is one which the Ministry of Labour continues to review and monitor with genuine concern."

The current Premier (Mr. Peterson) stated and if I had time, I would have liked to have gone into his total answer, because it portrays a mindset that worries it might lead to more union organization than to solving the problem -- in response to a question from the member for Bellwoods about First Canadian Place: "I am not giving him a guarantee that I will change that legislation, but I will look at it. We are reviewing it."

The Minister of Labour stated as recently as October 6, 1986: "Finally, on the policy front, I am sure you are aware, the issue of government and private sector tendering of contracts is under active review by the ministry."

Surely that indicates as clearly as is possible that we have had a long period of taking a look at the injustice done to the cleaning men and women of Ontario and those in other service industries.

What does the bill do? It is worth taking just a moment to explain in more detail what the bill does and to give examples.

The first part of the bill,

section 63a, applies in situations where a company contracts out for work being performed by the company's workers. That most closely resembles the situation we had in nursing homes, hospitals and homes for the aged a few years ago.

Incidentally, the answer that may come back, that the Brantwood Manor Nursing Home case was settled through the Ontario Labour Relations Board, is not an answer that makes an awful lot of sense or gives us a lot of security, because that case has been appealed by the Brantwood nursing home people. We are in for a long period of argument over whether the decision made in support of the workers can be sustained. We have not answered it through appeals to the labour relations board.

The second part of the bill,

section 63b, applies in situations where a contract exists between the owner of a business and a contractor and protects the workers and their collective agreement when the contract is terminated by either party or when it expires according to its own terms.

This provision applies to the situations we have seen at Conestoga College, at the Toronto-Dominion Centre, at First Canadian Place and at a location in Ottawa, where we are just now going through the loss of 140 jobs as a result of a change of contractor. They will get $1 an hour less -- and they were getting only $5 and some change per hour -- if they want to apply to the new contractor. Several have, but nobody as yet has been hired in that situation.

We can clearly see that the bill deals specifically with the problem. Some people have raised arguments and concerns about whether the bill is too broad, whether it may prevent, encourage or affect other areas. I do not think it does. I received a legal opinion on that just today from lawyers with the United Steelworkers of America whom I asked about the situation. They have pointed out a couple of small areas where there might be some conflict.

I want to say to the members of the other two parties that this bill is not as broad as the Minister of Labour tries to indicate. If there are concerns about any part of it, we think this issue is so vital and so important that the way to answer two or three minor points of concern is to do it in clause-by-clause debate, where we can move amendments on further debate of this piece of legislation.

I want to move from that. I will not have time to reserve, if I am going to make the remarks I want to. It is vital that members understand that what we are dealing with here is a fundamental issue of justice for these cleaning men and women in Ontario. The Conservatives, through their labour critic at the time, the member for Brantford (Mr. Gillies), promised these men and women that the Tories would support changes to

section 63 of the legislation and would even support this bill. I hope they are going to live up to that promise.

However, I am disturbed when I hear from the former Labour critic of the Conservative Party that the best he can offer is a free vote. All private members' bills are free votes. He will try to get some support from his caucus. I think the letters he sent to the cleaners were well meant when he sent them. In the one he sent to Costa and do Couto, he said:

"I was most pleased to have the opportunity to meet with your delegation last week. As we discussed at the meeting, the Progressive Conservative Party supports the successor rights provision of

section 63 of the Labour Relations Act to cover cleaners and other employees of subcontractors. In making this change, the employment and collective agreements of this group of workers would then be protected in the event the subcontractor employer changes. If I can be of further assistance to you in this regard, please do not hesitate to contact me."

He was quoted as saying in the Legislature on April 25: "With the support of the two opposition parties, we could pass" -- the extension of successor rights for employees of cleaning contractors -- "very quickly."

He is right. What we can get the government to do I do not know, but exactly that could happen with the support of the Conservative Party.

I want to say to the Liberals that I suppose the comments I have read out from the Minister of Labour and the Premier -- and there are others -- clearly indicate that they recognize the need; they recognize the problem here. I hope they recognize there is a question of fundamental justice.

The answer we had from the Premier with regard to the major dispute in which he was involved was that he did not care or that it was not an issue of protecting the unions; it was an issue of protecting the workers.

I suggest to Liberal members that they should stop and think for a minute. Are we always going to react and intervene on a personal basis in an effort to solve a problem when it is right there at that given time, like a doctor who will treat an immediate emergency? Is it not much more important in our society that we treat the causes of the disease and put in place the legislation that prevents this from happening before the workers in an establishment are hurt, in many cases hurt very seriously?

If I can find it, I would like to end with a quote or two from a piece in the Toronto Star. It is important to put this on record. I want to appeal to my Liberal colleagues across the way. I am not doing it in a negative or challenging fashion, but in the hope that it will get through to them what is at stake in this debate. It is an

article by Sandro Contenta in the Toronto Star of March 11, 1986, dealing with the case of one of the many cleaning women involved. It struck me as I read it and when I reread it as we were preparing for this debate. It simply says:

10:20

"Maria Medeiros's hands are rough and she suffers the odd pinch in her back, thanks to 13 years of lifting furniture and pushing a mop. For the last seven years, she's scrubbed and shined the 33rd floor of First Canadian Place....

"Long hours, heavy work, minimum wage and no job security are the norm for Medeiros and her fellow cleaners. In the past, workers have been locked out for arriving five minutes late. Being fired on the spot was a constant threat.

"In 1979, the women joined a union to fight for gains most workers take for granted. Still, Medeiros and 250 other cleaners of First Canadian Place and the Exchange Towers last month were faced with a tough choice: Either agree to have their salaries slashed to minimum wage -- losing their collective agreement and effectively breaking their union -- or lose their jobs."

The last couple of paragraphs in the

article read:

"After he made the deal to save cleaners' jobs, Peterson told reporters that changing the law would `tie the hands of the commercial world' by making it impossible for companies to contract out for cheap labour. However, a policy analyst for the Canadian Manufacturers' Association told the Star she had no idea how allowing a collective agreement to stand once a contract is tendered would hurt industry's flexibility." I do not either.

The last paragraph is the most revealing of all. "`The Liberals won't do anything,' said Medeiros. `You know why? Because they have business friends who fill up their pockets with money. It's true. That's the way it works.'"

I hope that is not the case with the members of the Liberal caucus, that they understand clearly what is at stake here, an issue of basic justice and equality for these workers, and that they will support Bill 132 in the House today.

Mr. Ferraro: It is a pleasure for me to participate in this debate on the member's proposed Bill 132, although I rise in opposition to the bill. It is no surprise to the member for Hamilton East (Mr. Mackenzie) that I am opposed to this bill. In the past, we have been and probably will continue to be in different spectrums of socialism versus free enterprise, and I deem it exactly that.

The bill being proposed by the member is in essence a reaction to an isolated incident that occurred at First Canadian Place. Admittedly, it has happened on other occasions, but it should be worthy of note that the case of the cleaners was resolved, with the co-operation of the Premier, I might add; and it is a problem, I admit.

The member himself said there are problems with the bill. It is refreshing to hear him say that. This problem of subcontracting or contracting out will be resolved by this government, but it is not as easy as the member for Hamilton East might want to indicate.

I want to speak against this bill specifically from the perspective of small business. People will know that 320,000 small businesses employ half the people in Ontario, if not more, or roughly 1.9 million people of a total work force of approximately 3.9 million. What Bill 132 does is essentially to force any small business that has a subcontract from a large individual or firm to become unionized. It then causes significant problems for the economy of Ontario.

Let me add a bit about how it affects small business. Of Ontario's small firms, 90 per cent are nonunion. Eighty per cent of the exports of small manufacturers are in goods sold to larger firms and exported by them. This shows that such a bill would seriously damage the financial strength of the business sector, especially manufacturing.

Interjections.

Mr. Ferraro: I hear members from the socialist party criticizing me. That is fine. I listened intently to their colleague. They should at least have the courtesy to listen to what I say. I am not asking them to agree with me, because I know they will not, but it would be appreciated if they would listen. Perhaps it is part of the inherent nature of a New Democratic not to have any courtesy.

The bill would force small businesses to become unionized members. This itself, in my view and in the view of many small business associations, is wrong and undemocratic.

The debate about Bill 132 must include this discussion, a consideration of the basic rights of Ontarians to enter into contracts or compete for business contracts with whomsoever they wish. This bill does not do that. The right of the business owner and of his or her employees to decide for themselves whether they want to become unionized is totally disregarded in this legislation. It is quite simple. They do not have a choice. If they want to work under this contract, they have to become unionized.

What would happen if this bill passed? There are some frightening implications, to say the least. Contractors seeking subcontractors may look out of the province or out of the country for those subcontractors. The daily cry in this House about lost jobs, particularly from the members of the third party, is proof enough that a rise in unemployment is unacceptable.

Small firms that live by their contracts with larger firms would be forced to unionize. In addition, those firms could face economic hardships because of an imposed collective agreement. Inevitably, the consumers in this province will face higher prices because of higher costs of labour. A survey done this year by various small business association shows fewer jobs would be created. In fact, 62 per cent of small firms say they consider the cost of payroll taxes when they are thinking about hiring.

Bill 132 would solve the problems of the cleaners, but it would do nothing for small businessmen, 90 per cent of whom are not unionized at all. It is like weeding a flower box with a Rototiller. It is overkill, to say the least. These are not just thoughts that are being expressed by me, proudly, as a representative of small business, but also by other small business associations. Let me read into the record a couple comments.

Jim Bennett of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business is quoted as saying, "The Ontario Labour Relations Act is already overwhelmingly biased in favour of unions." Judith Andrew from the same association says, "Contracting out fosters the birth and growth of small business and a healthier and more productive economy." The CFIB contends that the bill is a counterproductive policy proposal.

Mr. McClellan: You should run for office in Poland.

[Interruption]

The Deputy Speaker: Order. I remind those in the gallery that no demonstration of any kind is permitted.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Including laughing at the jokes of the member for Bellwoods.

The Deputy Speaker: Perhaps the members of the third party will assist by declining from interjecting.

Mr. Ferraro: Geoffrey Hale of the Canadian Organization of Small Business said:

"To use your influence to shelve Bill 132 is an active desire" -- on the part of his association -- "to ensure thereby that small businesses retain the right to compete for business contracts without the threat of mandatory and retroactive unionization."

The member for Hamilton East and his party admit that there are some problems and that something should be done, and we agree. I reiterate that this bill is essentially one of overkill and extremely dangerous to the small business community.

I am surprised by the reaction of at least one member of the Conservative caucus, the labour critic. The member for Hamilton East has already quoted a letter saying the Conservative labour critic is in support of this. I find it interesting that a party which for so long purported to be the champion of free enterprise and the small businessman would unequivocally come out in support of this; in other words, forcing small business to become union members. This is what the labour critic of the Conservative Party has done in writing.

One of my own ministers was criticized the other day for something he signed. The member for Brantford, who obviously sits to the left of his leader, perhaps should move down about 10 or 15 rows and join the New Democratic Party. I am sure every Conservative in Ontario will be very proud of the action of this member.

In fairness, the small business critic, the member for Cambridge (Mr. Barlow), has a different point of view, and I respect him for that. I hope that is the predominant view of the members of his caucus.

10:30

The problems associated with contracting out and subcontracting will be dealt with by this government in a much more effective and democratic way than this bill proposes. The rights of workers and business owners must be balanced in legislation of this type. Bill 132 is by no means a balancing act. I believe the rights of both groups are being ignored. In particular, the rights of the workers to determine whether they want to join a union are being ignored, and the rights of the businessman are not being considered.

The House will be voting on this in a few hours, if not minutes. It is very simple for the members of the third party to say it is not serious. In my consultations with all the small business organizations, I have found that employers and some workers are frightened by the implications of Bill 132. We should make no mistake about it; unlike all the members of the Progressive Conservative Party, I can stand here and say the Liberal Party of Ontario will be voting against this bill. We believe we can come up with a better idea that is much more equitable and much more democratic.

Mr. Barlow: It is a pleasure to rise to speak on this bill and to follow my friend and neighbour the member for Wellington South (Mr. Ferraro). The seriousness of Bill 132 weighs heavily on all members of this assembly.

The Deputy Speaker: Order. The security people will please remove the people from the northeast gallery, not including the front row. Please clear that portion.

Mr. Gillies: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: I wonder whether it is necessary to clear the gallery now. Perhaps we could advise the people in the gallery --

The Deputy Speaker: No, I am sorry. I did warn them. There was the hissing --

Mr. Mackenzie: The Deputy Speaker would rather put them in jail.

The Deputy Speaker: Please clear the portion of the northeast gallery, excluding the front row. Excuse me; exclude the back two rows too, please. There was no demonstration in that area.

Mr. Mackenzie: There were a number of people throughout who did not participate in that demonstration.

The Deputy Speaker: Correct, in fairness, but the Speaker cannot cherry-pick different people throughout who did or did not. The demonstration came from a certain area. I tried to isolate that area as well as I could.

Mr. Polsinelli: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: I raise for your consideration whether it is appropriate in our society to punish some innocent people to ensure that the guilty are caught.

The Deputy Speaker: Thank you. The chair has made its ruling.

Mr. Barlow: This is certainly not a frivolous piece of proposed legislation. I would like to believe that Bill 132 has been introduced by the NDP Labour critic, the member for Hamilton East, in his sincere desire to help people who feel vulnerable when it comes time for an employer to trim costs.

When Bill 132 was first introduced, I had my executive assistant call the member for Hamilton East, who happened to answer the phone that day, to see what he was intending. Frankly, I was pleased to hear he was introducing legislation that would protect, to use his words, the low-paid Portuguese immigrant cleaning women from arbitrary loss of jobs when jobs are contracted out to other firms.

I was most anxious to examine proposed legislation that could effectively help a designated group of people without having its tentacles wandering into other milieux. My curiosity was aroused, since I know that to discriminately single out a certain gender, nationality or group of people for specialized treatment contravenes the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Nevertheless, if the NDP labour critic had been clever enough to figure out a way one could do just that, he would have had my support.

After all, a large proportion of my riding is made up of people of Portuguese origin. Close to 20 per cent of the Cambridge riding is made up of people of Portuguese origin. Being a Cambridge native, I have a strong affinity with these Portuguese people and indulge in being with them on many occasions at their various festivals. Even if my constituents are not personally affected by the situation the member for Hamilton East has attempted to correct, I am sure many of their friends and relatives are. Naturally, I am interested in legislation that would make life easier for these very hardworking people.

Having looked a lot closer at Bill 132 since that time, however, I have become very concerned about what happens when, in an attempt to protect a certain group of workers, we smother the very lifeblood of business itself. What happens to the jobs we are trying so hard to protect if business cannot flourish, if those who are providing employment opportunities are suffocated by increased regulatory burdens and we in effect outlaw the future subcontracting of work by union companies to nonunion firms?

This legislation to extend successor rights causes me and members of the business community grave concern. The member for Wellington South read out letters similar to the ones I have received. Like him, I meet with these business organizations on a regular basis in my position as our party's critic for small business.

While it is intended to extend to the employees of contractors rights other workers already have, protecting poorly paid immigrant women and enhancing the collective bargaining regime in the province, all of which are good things, the amendments to the act unduly restrict the freedom to contract; they create undue interference in the relationship between contractors and their employers and prevent the most efficient and productive use of our resources.

Of even greater concern to me is that this legislation works both upstream and downstream. By downstream, I mean a collective agreement, or a potential one, is passed down from an employer to a contractor through to a subsequent contractor. This is apparent and seems to be consistent with what the bill says. However, the upstream effect is a little unexpected. Because of the broad wording of subsection 63b(1) of this proposed act, should a person terminate a contract and assume the responsibility for the work himself, he will be in the same position as the contractor and accordingly can inherit bargaining rights.

In other words, a company that had contracted certain work to a union contractor terminated the contract and resumed doing the work itself, it would be bound by the contractor's collective agreement. Where one hires a contractor to do one's cleaning and then decides to give it to one's son or another person in the firm whose job may be becoming redundant, the union contract would fall on to that person.

In my opinion, it is rather scary stuff. Business owners will have to think twice about contracting out to union firms. I remind this assembly that subcontracting is a legitimate way of doing business in Ontario, whether or not unions are involved. Properly managed, subcontracting contributes significantly to the productivity and competitiveness of Canadian companies.

I am afraid passage of Bill 132 would serve to undermine the present and prospective livelihood of thousands of small businesses and result in reduced employment opportunities for those faced with the spectre of forced automatic union certification. The impact of such legislation would be most damaging to smaller, nonunionized, independent firms.

Contracting to larger firms is the business base of thousands of smaller businesses, 90 per cent of them -- using the same figures and reading from the same hymn book as does the member for Wellington South -- 90 per cent of these small businesses are nonunionized and many of them gained their starting business by offering better value than the contracting firm could provide in-house.

10:40

I do not recall any private member's bill or, for that matter, even a government bill that has caused so much furore in the business community as Bill 132 has done. Unfortunately, it does not necessarily protect the workers. In

summary, Bill 132 would serve to upset the labour-business equilibrium in our province, a province that has already, since the Liberal government came to power, seen more than its share of legislation which, taken together, works against and discourages business in general and small business in particular.

Bill 132 would inhibit employers and contractors from the freedom to contract work out legitimately. Bill 132 would limit the ability of contractors to bid on contracts because it would require them to use virtually the same workers and would bind them to the terms of a collective agreement they never entered into. Bill 132 would result in contractors being deprived of their right to recruit their own employees and of their ability to bargain their own terms of employment with these employees. Bill 132 would prevent an employer from cutting costs and would prevent the streamlining of operations leading to increased efficiency and greater productivity.

In effect, this proposed amendment to the Labour Relations Act provides protection to unions without affording greater job protection to workers or their employers. I urge all members of this assembly to be very leery of this piece of legislation. It goes far beyond what the member originally intended in all good conscience. I know what he originally intended, but this goes far beyond that. It is a wolf in sheep's clothing. It is truly a piece of legislation that portrays something quite different from what it really is. I urge all members to vote against this piece of legislation.

Mr. McClellan: Talk about wolves in sheep's clothing. The wolf-like face of the Liberal Party of Ontario finally emerges clearly for everybody to see. All their rhetoric about their concern for those at the low end of the pay scale and all their professed concern about the plight of immigrant workers and underpaid workers is stripped away to protect the so-called sacred freedom of the business community to contract out.

All that means is the freedom of business representatives such as the member for Wellington South and his colleagues in the Liberal Party to fire workers who have been able to win a collective agreement and achieve a descent standard of living and replace them with workers at the minimum wage.

This is the notion of freedom that comes from the Liberal Party of Ontario. I find it difficult to believe what I have heard in this debate this morning. When I was elected in September 1975, the very first thing that confronted me as a new representative was the cleaning staff at Queen's Park all being fired. The people who cleaned our offices at night were all being fired because the government of Ontario had tendered their contract and contracted it out to a private firm.

This was a union contract. Their union was being taken away from them. These were workers who were earning about $6 per hour. They were going to be paid the minimum wage under the new contract. These were our own offices right here in the Legislative Building. The very first thing that happened to me was that a community coalition came together to fight for those jobs and to force the government to back down.

However, the battle has not been won. As my colleague the member for Hamilton East pointed out, we are engaged in a series of firefighting exercises, trying to save the jobs of workers first at the Toronto-Dominion Centre, then at Olympia and York Developments Ltd., then at Conestoga College, then at the post office and in other parts of the Queen's Park complex.

As workers have struggled to win basic rights that one assumes are accepted in a free democratic society -- the right to form a collective bargaining unit and to have one's own trade union -- one after another these rights are taken away from workers, their jobs are contracted out from under them, their unions are smashed and their wages are lowered to the level of the minimum wage.

I say again to my colleague the member for Wellington South that this kind of behaviour is acceptable perhaps in Poland from General Jaruzelski, but it is not acceptable in a democratic society. That kind of reactionary, Neanderthal, outdated social attitude has no place in the late 20th century in a democracy such as Canada. Workers have a right to trade unions, and the business community does not have a right to strip them of those unions through the process of contracting out or to strip them of their standard of living through the process of reducing their wages through the competitive bidding process.

The ultimate example of this kind of exploitation and injustice, which has mobilized a great coalition in this community of Metropolitan Toronto, is the plight of men and women working in the cleaning industry. One after another, over the last 20 years, workers in the cleaning industry have succeeded in very difficult circumstances in forming a union and raising their wages, not to some magnificent level, not to $13 or $15 an hour, or $17 or $18 an hour, wages and incomes that perhaps those of us in this assembly are more used to, but rather wages in the order of $5, $6, $7 or $8 an hour at the very most.

What happens with the process of contracting out is that their wages go back to the level of the minimum wage. The cleaning industry in this community, and I suspect in most communities across Ontario, is the modern equivalent of a sweatshop. It pays minimum wage. It has found a way of preventing its work force from forming trade unions to bargain for the betterment of their wages and working conditions. It thrives on the systematic exploitation of immigrant workers.

Members had better understand that. Those who are voting against this provision had better understand that this provision is the only way of stopping the exploitation of immigrant workers in our province.

The technique is not a new one. It is as old as immigration itself to this country. The process of exploitation of immigrant workers is intimately and inextricably linked with the process of preventing immigrant workers from joining trade unions and with the process of smashing their trade unions. I am using perhaps strong language, but it happens to be the truth. I am deliberately using strong language to try to make the point to those who say that the rights of the business community to do business in traditional ways in this province are paramount and sacrosanct and cannot be violated.

What about the rights of those who clean in the business firms? Do they not have a right to a decent standard of living? Are they to be condemned in perpetuity to work in an industry where the pressures on wages are always downwards, back down to the level of the minimum wage?

Is the message of the Liberal Party of Ontario that the hundreds of thousands of men and women who have come to this country to make a better life for themselves and for their children cannot expect the protection of the law if they form a trade union, but can look forward to the government of Ontario encouraging their employers to drive down their wages, back to the level of the minimum wage? Is that the policy of the government and of the Liberal Party of Ontario?

10:50

In the short time remaining this morning, members had better think seriously about how they want to vote on this matter. As it affects cleaners, this has become an issue of symbolic importance for the Portuguese community of Metropolitan Toronto. There has been a great coalition put together behind this issue of fighting for the rights of cleaning workers, and it is something that has struck a responsive cord among those men and women who have come to this country from Portugal since the 1950s and 1960s. It has come to symbolize the kind of struggle that has faced them in this country.

It also symbolizes an opening, a breakthrough and a way of achieving a decent standard of living, through working hard and through fighting for collective rights, not excessive rights but simply rights to a decent reward for their labour and to a decent standard of living for themselves and their children.

Anybody who argues that small business cannot survive a work force that is paid at the level of $6, $7 or $8 an hour is not making any sense. Anybody who says that small business in Ontario can survive only if it pays its work force at the level of the minimum wage is not making any sense. Who is going to buy their goods and products? What are they going to buy it with, if we do not have a well-paid work force? Who are going to be the customers of the small businessmen?

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Morin): Your time has expired.

Mr. McClellan: I appeal in my final sentence to my colleagues in the Liberal Party to think twice before they slap so many people in the face.

Mr. Polsinelli: After the eloquent dissertation of the member for Bellwoods on the right of workers to unionize -- a right which, I believe, is not denied but encouraged by each member of this assembly -- it is incumbent on me to begin my remarks by again reiterating what the bill of the member for Hamilton East does. Bill 132 would amend the Labour Relations Act to prevent unionized companies from subcontracting to nonunionized firms for work which has been done by unionized workers. The nonunionized firm may be a subcontractor if it agrees to operate under the contractor's collective agreement and become unionized itself. This bill does not deal with the right of workers to unionize.

As a member of this assembly, I am troubled by the circumstances that led to the member's creation of this bill. I speak of those instances, well reported in this House, where cleaners were faced with the prospect of losing their jobs in situations of contracting out and contract tendering.

Many of us will remember the situation in March at First Canadian Place, where 250 unionized workers for Federated Building Maintenance Co. Ltd. saw their jobs threatened in a decision by the owner, Olympia and York, to tender the cleaning contract. I believe the resolve and intervention of the Premier and the Minister of Labour aided in saving those jobs.

As parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Labour, I share the concerns I know he continues to have for all workers facing job losses. I can only concur with those workers who mobilized into action in March and felt that changes were needed. Many of them are immigrants to this country and, as an immigrant myself, I share their sense of frustration in the wake of apparent injustices that must be confronted.

I do not believe Bill 132 is the solution. In many situations, it may exacerbate the problem. Many members of this assembly will know that the vast majority of the cleaners are not represented by unions and, as a result, those workers will be penalized severely by this bill. It will inevitably pit unionized workers against nonunionized workers. As a government, we have a responsibility to all workers, not just to unionized workers, and that responsibility cannot be forgotten.

Bill 132 would amend the Labour Relations Act so that the sale of businesses provisions contained in

section 63 of the act would apply to cases of contracting out and contract tendering. The New Democrats have used the problems faced by the unionized cleaners to justify this bill.

The problems involve contract tendering and not contracting out. Moreover, the problems have arisen in cases where the work continues to be performed within the same establishment. Bill 132 would extend this to all sectors involved in contract tendering. To do so would severely hamper the auto parts industry, along with the construction industry. By their very nature, those sectors depend on this form of business activity.

Members should note that, by virtue of contracting out of service and maintenance work, cleaners in this province engage in work through their current employers. Further, on the issue of contracting out, unionized employees already enjoy the benefit of substantial protection. They do so through provisions that can be negotiated under collective agreements. This protection can take the form of a limitation of contracting out or simply of an absolute ban on any contracting out of work. The limitation or prohibition of contracting out can be enforced through the arbitration process.

Contracting out has also been dealt with under the Labour Relations Act. Recently, members will recall that in a landmark case in 1984 the Ontario Labour Relations Board ruled that an employer cannot contract out the core function without relinquishing control over that activity. I am not swayed by the argument of the member for Hamilton East that the bill was conceived to apply only to the service and health industries. Its wording leaves open its application to cover all aspects of contracting out and tendering. Its scope is too broad.

The reality of this bill is that it would cripple small businesses in all sectors of the economy that depend on larger firms farming out significant work their way. This bill would discourage bidding in contract work, and smaller concerns would not have the ability to compete in our own markets. It would also provide incentives to industry to have its production activity take place outside this province. In the wake of this, jobs in all sectors of our economy could conceivably be lost.

Another omission in this bill is that it does not adequately address the problem of a new contractor having an existing work force. Have the rights of such a contractor been forgotten or have they been taken into consideration at all by the member for Hamilton East?

Under the provisions of this bill, workers may not have jobs despite the fact that they have worked for an existing contractor for many years. That is an apparent injustice which is evident in this bill. If this appears unlikely to the member, he might well remember that even in the cleaning sector 95 per cent of the workers are not unionized. This bill does nothing to protect them. Essentially, what we have before us is a sledgehammer in Bill 132 that the opposition would use to kill a fly.

I reiterate that we are concerned about the plight of unionized cleaners and, indeed, all workers in this province, but the issues involved are too complex to be addressed by the approach this bill would have us adopt. The Minister of Labour and this government are currently engaged in the process that will see other measures introduced. The legislative initiatives that will be introduced will not only focus on the Labour Relations Act, but in a balanced and just way will enhance job security and the right to decent remuneration for workers in this province.

I feel that the appropriate way to address these concerns is a well-thought-out response that will not confuse contract tendering and successor rights. The Minister of Labour has well under way the process of reviewing the options available. Given the commitment of the minister and indeed of the Premier in assuring the resolution of this issue, I am sure this will be forthcoming in the not-too-distant future. I say to the critics in the third party and in the opposition that as the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Labour, I have been working with him in discussing the options available. I can assure this assembly that something will be introduced soon.

11:00

Mr. Gillies: We have about three seconds. I had a long speech prepared. Clearly, I am not going to be able to give it in the time remaining. I will be supporting the bill because of the principle enclosed therein, but I indicate to the member that if he had drafted a more specific piece of legislation aimed directly at the type of people we are trying to help, it would have had much wider support from our party. However, that can be amended in committee. I know what the member is trying to do, and I will support it.

PROPERTY RIGHTS

Mr. Epp moved resolution 5:

That this House authorizes that a proclamation be issued by the Governor General under the Great Seal of Canada amending

section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to read as follows:

7. Everyone has the right to life, liberty, security of the person and enjoyment of property and the right not be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice, and urges that the Senate and House of Commons and the legislative assemblies of the other provinces do likewise.

Mr. Epp: It is a pleasure to deal with this motion today. I plan to use approximately 15 minutes initially and then use the remaining time to wind up at the end of the debate. In doing so and in starting my remarks, I thank the members for being present this morning. I know there are difficulties with the overlapping of committee responsibilities. I also thank the Ontario Real Estate Association, which has done a lot of work on this subject regarding property rights in the province. Thousands of agents and others feel very strongly that this should be included in the constitution.

I hope what we are about to do here today is to pass a resolution that will enshrine in the Constitution an omission everyone is aware of that took place in 1982, when the Canadian Constitution was drafted. The omission was of enshrining in the Constitution the enjoyment of property. To do this we require the Canadian government -- the House of Commons -- to pass a resolution that would enshrine property rights, the enjoyment of property, as well as seven other provinces representing 50 per cent of the population of Canada.

To date, British Columbia has passed such a resolution. I point out to my friends on both sides of the House that the resolution was passed unanimously with all parties participating and voting in favour of it. A somewhat minor-amended version was passed by the Legislature in New Brunswick and by the Yukon Territory, which adopted the same resolution I have before the House today, and it was adopted by the BC Legislature.

It might be helpful to point out to the members that democracy has been based upon and has thrived upon four basic rights. These rights are life, liberty, security and the enjoyment of property. At this point, the charter protects only the first three; it excludes the right to hold property. It might also be opportune to point out that the fathers of the Canadian Constitution, at a later date, included in the Constitution the continuation of a heritage of freedom; so that since the original Constitution at least another amendment has been made to the Constitution.

The personal right to property has been constantly reaffirmed throughout history in the courts and in the common and statute law of the United Kingdom, from whom we inherited our basic laws. It was reaffirmed in our country in 1960, when the Right Honourable John Diefenbaker introduced the Bill of Rights, which was adopted by the House of Commons and by the Canadian people at that time. I might also point out that property rights were proposed for inclusion in the charter during the hearings of the special joint Senate-Commons committee but were later withdrawn by the federal government.

It is my hope that this will be one more link eventually to get the enjoyment of property aspect into the Canadian Constitution.

The importance of protecting the individual property owner and allowing such property owners to have an opportunity to protect their rights in court is the basis of this resolution. It would protect property owners against unnecessary or unfair government actions against their property. The amendment protects against unjust infringement of an individual's rights. That is something that Canada has always stood for and something that is obviously lacking in the present Constitution.

The amendment is vital as a symbolic affirmation of Canada's and Ontario's heritage as well as a statement of our national intention to adhere to that tradition.

I know there are a number of people who have some fears with respect to this amendment, and I want to deal with some of those fears at this time. There are fears with regard to zoning laws, expropriation laws and family law dealing with the division of property on marriage breakdown. These appear to be unfounded.

Regarding zoning laws, the Canadian Bar Association and its Ontario branch have dealt with all these aspects in committees thereof. In May 1985, the CBA Ontario branch's property rights entrenchment committee issued a report which found no existing government scheme would be prevented or seriously impeded by the inclusion of the words "enjoyment of property." The CBA report makes that clear.

The protection afforded by entrenchment of the rights recognized in

section 7 of the charter is not absolute, and all such rights are subject to the provisions of

section 1 of the charter.

Section 1 of the charter reads as follows:

"The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society."

If that is the case, this

section must be kept in mind in reassessing the potential impact of the entrenchment of property rights upon the ability of legislators to enact laws concerning natural resources, environmental or land use planning. Legislation dealing with any subject matter that imposes only reasonable limits upon property rights will be unaffected by entrenchment.

The CBA report points out that, in the United States, legislatures and government agencies have been able to enact and enforce zoning and environmental protection laws despite the provisions of amendments 5 and 14 of the US Constitution.

Amendment 5 of the US Constitution provides, in part: "nor shall any person be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation."

Amendment 14 provides: "nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law...."

11:10

The government of British Columbia, in passing its resolution, considered all these aspects. As I indicated, it adopted the resolution unanimously.

Let me deal with another concern that people have; it has to do with women's rights. Some concern has been expressed that the addition of property rights to the charter would somehow harm the matrimonial property legislation across Canada which provides for the division of assets upon divorce or separation.

The US Constitution has been in existence for 210 years, while ours has existed since 1982. The fifth amendment is part of the US Constitution, as is the fourth amendment, which has been there for 195 years. Where state constitutions contain similar provisions, no statutes providing for the division of property upon a dissolution of marriage have ever been held unconstitutional.

I want to emphasize that. Some of the people who want to throw red herrings in the face of not including property rights in our Constitution keep on saying that the women's rights movement in the US has been set back because of the US Constitution. There is absolutely no evidence to support that contention; it is a red herring. No statute providing for the division of property upon the dissolution of marriage has ever been held to be unconstitutional. That is important.

An additional safeguard the US Constitution does not include, but that we have in Canada, is

section 1 of our charter, which "guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society."

What judges often do in looking at constitutional matters in Canada is to refer to

section 1. I emphasize that

section 1 is the most important

section in our Constitution; it has to be subject to that. Where in the US no state laws dealing with these matters have been found to be unconstitutional, in Canada we have the added protection of

section 1. The Canadian Bar Association and the Law Society of Upper Canada have recognized that in supporting this amendment.

We are looking for the passage of this amendment. We want people to know that the entrenchment of property rights in the Constitution is very important to us. I want to cite two examples of where there has been real abuse with respect to property rights. We have hundreds of authorities in government for the expropriation of property. We have all the conservation authorities. We have the provincial government, the federal government and the municipal governments. We have 839 municipal governments in Ontario. There are hundreds of authorities, and I suspect more than 1,000, if we were to count them.

What we want to do by passing this resolution is to put some kind of protection out there for the people themselves.

I want to cite two cases, copies of which members have received at their desks. These were kindly made available by the Ontario Real Estate Association, which put out a tape on this as well as some literature.

First, I want to cite the case of Mr. and Mrs. Ludwig Fromm, who had a piece of property not far from here, at McCaul and College streets; in fact, it fronts on McCaul Street. The case took place on July 31, 1975, when they owned Gordon's Take-Out Service and Delicatessen. They owned the place, lived upstairs and were somewhat in arrears with their payment for the premises, but that in itself had nothing to do with the way they were treated. They catered to a lot of people in the vicinity, and it was a fairly economically viable operation; it supported the couple and their family.

They were told they had to move, and they were promised a certain amount of money by Ontario Hydro. The gist of this was that they were forced out of this property. They had 2,600 square feet in the building, and they were forced out because Ontario Hydro wanted to use it for a station. The Ontario Hydro property division wanted to acquire the parcel of land to build the transformer station it wanted to put on that location.

The Fromms had to move from that location and were partly compensated for it; they got a $186,000 settlement. They felt that with their legal costs and so forth, they were out at least $5,000. They subsequently moved north, to Gravenhurst, to relocate their restaurant. That did not work out for them, because they were subject there to such elements as people not frequenting their place as often as they did down here. Subsequently, they sold it, lost about $40,000 or $50,000 and moved away from their Gravenhurst restaurant location.

The important point is that no one had to justify why he wanted to buy this take-out service and delicatessen, and the place still sits empty today; it has been boarded up and painted. The Fromms could have continued their operation until this date, 11 years later. Ontario Hydro took it without having to justify to anyone why it wanted it. They compensated the Fromms, I admit that, to the extent of $186,000, but they did not have to justify it to anyone, and it is still not used for a transformer station or anything else. These people have been deprived of a livelihood because somebody, on a whim, wanted that property without having to justify it. I do not think that is fair.

With this, we are saying that if the government wants to expropriate property, it has to be able to justify it before the courts if the person who is being expropriated is not in agreement with the amount of money he is being given for compensation. Aside from the financial loss, it is a real trauma to lose such property.

I want to cite one other case, and these are only two of eight cases the Ontario Real Estate Association has listed; there are hundreds of others that could be dealt with.

In 1950, Highway 400 was being built north of Toronto, and a gentleman by the name of Jack Teskey had a large farm there. From 1958 to 1977, there were several expropriations of his land. Mr. Teskey eventually got a cheque from the then Ministry of Transport, now the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, for $10,200. He never cashed the cheque, because he felt he was really done in by this provincial ministry. Originally, the Minister of Transport offered him $3,100. When he went to the Ontario Municipal Board, he was given $10,200; so one knows how much the ministry was originally short in offering a certain amount of money.

Eventually, Mr. Teskey died, and the case has still not been resolved. It is another example of where government has run roughshod over an individual and the individual had no recourse to the courts to prevent it taking away important and valuable property for him and his family. This is what this resolution will do. People will have recourse to courts, where they can be heard and their rights protected.

I am going to save the remaining time to wind up later on in the morning.

The Deputy Speaker: Two minutes and 38 seconds have been reserved by the member for Waterloo North.

11:20

Mr. Partington: I am pleased to speak in support of the resolution of the member for Waterloo North, a resolution which will provide for the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to state that "everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person and enjoyment of property and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice."

The member's resolution would introduce into the Charter of Rights one of the four basic rights of democracy in Canada, which are the right to life, the right to liberty, the right to security of the person and the right to property. These are the four cornerstones upon which our Freedom depends and which have allowed us in Canada to build one of the fairest, most progressive and prosperous countries in the world.

I suggest that our society is composed largely of an immigrant population, people who came from democratic societies where property rights were a hallmark and where they expected their rights and freedoms, including their right to property, to continue. Certainly, many immigrants have come to these shores, to this great country, because certain rights and freedoms were denied in their own countries, particularly the right and freedom of owning and enjoying property.

Originally, when the Charter of Rights was drafted, the right to enjoyment of property, which could not be denied except by due process of law, was included in the charter. Unfortunately, the right to enjoyment of property was deleted at that time, mainly because of the concern expressed by the provincial governments of Prince Edward Island and Saskatchewan, which were concerned that their ability to legislate on land ownership and other matters of property falling within their constitutional jurisdiction would be restricted. I think Prince Edward Island was concerned about the purchasing of large tracts of land by nonresidents or non-Canadians.

There are concerns about the entrenchment of the enjoyment of property rights in the charter, but I think these concerns can be addressed and, on balance, the right to enjoyment of property, as the member for Waterloo North has suggested, should be entrenched in the Canadian Charter of Rights.

People came to these shores because of the freedom our life offers. Certainly the tradition of property rights is one of long standing in this country and one which, I submit, is a great strength, not only to the country but also to the whole fabric of society, to the family unit. Property rights are important.

The right to own property has been recognized down through the years and has been very eloquently addressed from time to time. In 1760, in the British House of Commons, there was the elegant statement of William Pitt: "The poorest man may in his cottage do defiance to all the forces of the crown. It may be frail; its roof may shake; the wind may blow through it; the storm may enter; the rain may enter, but the King of England cannot enter. All his force dares not cross the threshold."

Further, James Wilson, one of the original justices of the United States Supreme Court and a signatory to the United States Declaration of Independence, stated: "The right of private property is founded in the nature of men and things. What belongs to no one is wasted by everyone. What belongs to one man in particular is the object of his economy and care. Exclusive property prevents disorder and promotes peace."

This feeling has been reaffirmed throughout history in the courts and in the common law and statutes of the United Kingdom and the United States, and it is a tradition of the Canadian common law.

The Canadian Real Estate Association has further emphasized the need for the entrenchment of property rights in the Constitution during the hearings of the joint Senate-House committee. It is concerned that the failure to include property rights in the Charter of Rights is a serious threat to the fabric of Canadian society. The association has painted a somewhat dark spectre of increasing government regulation and control of ownership in the absence of entrenched property rights. CREA has warned that property rights are being eroded and are in dire need of protection and has pointed out that more than 700 provincial statutes in Ontario alone affect property.

I will present two examples of the effect on property. I point to Mariano versus South Lake Simcoe Conservation Authority. Frank Mariano and his wife bought a 113-year-old building on the main street of Uxbridge, 40 miles northeast of Toronto. They obtained a building permit to add an addition to the property and had undertaken $100,000 worth of renovations when they were told to stop construction by the conservation authority in the area. They applied for a permit to the South Lake Simcoe Conservation Authority and were denied one. After having invested a couple of hundred thousand dollars in a building that had stood for 113 years, these people were in dire straits.

There are many examples of the sometimes unfair effects of conflicting laws. In the city of St. Catharines, Charles Fullerton, a prominent lawyer in that area and a former partner of mine, represented Felix Rizzardo in an appeal against the Niagara Escarpment Commission's refusal to allow a building permit on a one-acre property that had been owned by the gentleman in question for 28 years.

After hearing the facts, the hearing officer made this comment: "In considering all the facts put forth at the hearing, one has to have consideration for Mr. Deacon," who was the person buying the property, "who did have a building permit 28 years ago and commenced a home only to be thwarted by the unfortunate circumstances of his wife's health. He is not financially set to go to the expense of engineering consultants for reports on this and that. However, the development of the property is possible, but not using the present excavation. If the purchaser were to submit a proper site plan to accommodate the natural contours, it could be acceptable."

Although the hearing officer denied the request, he suggested there could be a reapplication. This is another example of why there has to be law to protect those cases which, on the face of them, are quite unfair.

There is some concern that entrenching property rights could lead to an attack on much of the social legislation that is in place, but as the member for Waterloo North has stated, that will not happen, because the extension of the rights is always subject to such a reasonable limit as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.

Finally, it is important that we support this resolution and entrench in the Canadian Charter of Rights the right to enjoyment of property so that the traditions we have enjoyed over the years can continue and we can know that protection is there.

11:30

Mr. Laughren: I rise in opposition to this resolution. I do not think that will be any surprise to the member for Waterloo North. As a matter of fact, it is because I am such a nice guy that I rise in opposition to this resolution.

It is appropriate that he brought it forth because it is the kind of issue that needs to be debated in this chamber. I remind the member, however, that we are not talking about just changing a law, but about entrenching a value system in our Constitution. That is much more significant than simply changing a law through an amendment to the Canadian Constitution.

It is a very fundamental law, which I am certain would limit the power of parliaments to act at both the federal and provincial levels. For that reason, we should not engage in nice-sounding rhetoric simply to justify an argument that is going to change something as fundamental as a value system in our country. That is what this does.

I want to remind the member that the rights to property are already deeply entrenched in our system through common law, through contracts that are individual in nature and contracts with the state. The rights to private property are very deeply embedded and, in my view, do not need to be and indeed should not be entrenched in our Constitution.

Property rights should continue to be embedded in contract law on an individual and circumstantial basis, but I do not believe they should be entrenched in the Constitution. In other words, it is a legal right, but I do not think it should be classified as a political right, which it would be if it was entrenched in the Constitution.

It should be understood by people who say, "Property rights; yes, of course, everybody has a right to own property," that this would go much beyond that. It does much more than guarantee someone the right to own a home. If that is all it did, there would be no sense in bringing forth the resolution because that is already there. People have a right to own a home, unless the bank takes it away from them.

I did not realize how devious the member for Waterloo North is. This is an attempt to prevent the banks from expropriating property from ordinary working people and from taking farms away from farmers. I hope the member understands what he is doing. Otherwise, the National Citizens' Coalition will be on his doorstep tomorrow for limiting the property rights of banks to repossess farms and homes.

The member talked about the US constitution having property rights entrenched in it, but there have been problems in the US with property rights. For example, the right to regulate freight rates was challenged and the government was prevented from regulating freight rates. As well, the whole question of mortgages was raised in the US and the courts prevented farmers from postponing mortgage payments because of property rights of the banks.

While I was teasing the member a bit, it is true that the financial institutions in this country and others confiscate more property than governments ever have in North America. If that is what the member is trying to do, he should deal with the banks and other financial institutions in separate legislation and not try to do it through the Constitution.

In Canada, we have a long history of regulating the private sector. If we were to entrench property rights, I wonder about our right to regulate the airlines and phone company rates. There is the long history of that, accepted even by the phone company. Bell Canada accepts the fact that it has to go before the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission and justify its rates.

The member has brought forth an amendment that would have much more impact than even he would want it to have. That bothers me a great deal. I think of the right of doctors to extra bill. The present government just completed a bill in the past several months that prevents doctors from extra billing. If I read this

section right and interpret it correctly, the doctors would be able to challenge that right to extra bill under this amendment to the Constitution, if it were passed.

I believe that is true. I think developers could challenge the right of regulations on their property, because it is a property right to --

Mr. Ferraro: How did you make that out?

Mr. Laughren: It is. Take the example of expropriating property for a pipeline. When the Saskatchewan government expropriated -- I should not say "expropriated"; it negotiated and paid a very good price -- nevertheless, it took the potash companies under public ownership. If this country decided it wanted to bring into the public sector another major oil company or to have it join Petro-Canada, the oil company could very well challenge that, and probably successfully, if this were part of the Constitution.

That is inappropriate. If this were entrenched in the Constitution, there would be nothing to prevent the Reichmanns from buying Prince Edward Island. In Prince Edward Island, they are already trying to cope with American ownership of their island. I do not think they could prevent it if this were entrenched in the Constitution.

The member shakes his head, but I believe that to be true. I am only half kidding when I say I keep expecting the Reichmanns or the Bronfmans to make an offer on Prince Edward Island.

This amendment would reintroduce privilege back into our political system in a way that we have been trying to do away with over the past number of decades. As all members understand, universal suffrage was the most important way in which we, as a society, tried to eliminate privilege. If this is entrenched in the Constitution, it will indeed entrench a privileged position for property owners, and not everybody in society is a property owner. I do not think we are trying to make it a more privileged system.

It would not be the small property owner who would be protected by this amendment; it would be the large property owners who would be protected, and everyone should understand that. New Democrats see our society as moving away from this kind of direction and raising civil liberties and human rights, as opposed to property rights, to a higher level. Make no mistake about it. One is in opposition to the other. That is how it will finally shake down and that is why we are so adamantly opposed to it.

Members should not forget that we, as a society, and all of us, I believe, are supportive of more equality in our society; at least when I listen to the speakers that is what I hear. But I remind members that it was not so long ago when people were property, slaves were property, wives were the property of their husbands and children were the property of their fathers. We are trying to move away from that as far as we can.

We believe that working people have the right to refuse unsafe work; yet the employer could argue that it was his property right, that place of work, and he could challenge that right. We have to understand that we cannot support property rights and at the same time pretend that we are putting consumer rights and individual rights up high on the agenda as well. You cannot have it both ways.

If this member comes back to this chamber with a resolution to guarantee the right to a job, to housing, to medical service and to income to people of this province and this country; when he has accomplished that; when he has convinced the Liberal Party and governments across this country -- they have not supported it yet; as a matter of fact, the federal Liberal government opposed this -- when that has been done, then the member for Waterloo North should come back to this chamber and say: "I have accomplished something, my colleagues. I have entrenched in the Constitution the right for every citizen to enjoy income, to enjoy housing, to enjoy medical services and to have a job."

When the member has accomplished that, when he has raised that to the level of being entrenched in the Constitution, at that point he can come to us and see whether he can talk us into entrenching property rights. I do not think he will; I do not think he could talk us into that, but I would like to see him get the others in there. Perhaps I could use that as the motivation for him to succeed. When he has succeeded in entrenching more civil liberties and human rights in the Constitution, then he can come and talk to us about property rights.

11:40

Mr. Ferraro: It is a pleasure to rise in support of the motion of my colleague the member for Waterloo North to entrench property rights. I know it is going to make my friends in the third party happy to have to listen to me twice in one day, but that is the way the agenda presented itself.

I wholeheartedly concur with my colleague the member for Waterloo North and many other colleagues in the House that property rights should be entrenched in the Charter of Rights. Much of what I am going to say will be to some degree a reiteration of what other speakers who have spoken in support of it have said, because there are only a few basic arguments that can be made. I ask the indulgence of the House in this regard.

My friend the member for Nickel Belt (Mr. Laughren) made a couple of assertions that I obviously interpret in a different way. He talked about his fear that entrenching these property rights would be imposing a value system. He also talked about extra billing being somehow related to property rights. He lost me there. I do not want to deal with that one as I cannot see the relationship. The value system that members of the New Democratic Party talk about is obviously a different

interpretation of my value system, which is democracy. That is the ultimate value system.

In 1215, Magna Carta was passed. As has been mentioned by many other members, essentially four basic rights came from our British heritage, the rights to life, liberty, security and property. As we know, the Charter of Rights unfortunately did not include the fourth right, the right to property, when it was passed in 1982. As has been mentioned, it is interesting that it was an integral part of the Bill of Rights in 1960. Indeed, our democracy has flourished well considering these basic rights and inherent parts of democracy and freedom.

It is also interesting to note that notwithstanding what the New Democratic Party of Ontario feels, in 1983 the New Democratic Party in the British Columbia Legislature, along with the Social Credit Party, voted and unanimously supported the entrenchment of property rights in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Obviously, there is some confusion in the New Democratic Party philosophy.

We end up talking about a complexity of rights. Why it has to be in the Charter of Rights, notwithstanding the fact that it is in the Bill of Rights, can be argued. What we are talking about, as we all know, is that the Bill of Rights pertains essentially to federal legislation. The Charter of Rights empowers the courts to scrutinize provincial legislation to a greater degree. The Bill of Rights extends its protection only to individuals. The charter protects everyone. I know this will make the third party very angry, but this would include corporations as well as natural persons.

I might say that not all corporations are the size of Olympia and York or those of the Bronfmans. There are a lot of small corporations in this country and more and more are being registered, something like 100,000 every year. A lot of small people, small businessmen incorporate.

As to the complexity of rights I talked about, it has been argued that we do not have to put this in the Charter of Rights because by not having it in the Charter of Rights, even though the foundation of our country was based on the Bill of Rights that secured that basic right, we are protected because individual pieces of legislation will protect us, as my friend the member for Nickel Belt said.

By this he means that, for example, we could pass a bill in Ontario that would protect property owners from expropriation. Others will argue that by not putting it in the Charter of Rights you are not saying there are not property rights and you are leaving it open for much more small-l liberal

interpretation by the legislators and the judicial system in our country. Why do we want to tie their hands and limit that?

That is the real crux of the issue: why it should be in. It is not only because we had it in our Bill of Rights, which is essentially being replaced by the Charter of Rights, but also because constitutional experts -- I mentioned two, Penny Hill and Peter Hogg -- have said:

"Constitutional entrenchment implies a hierarchy of rights in which those entrenched have superior" -- I reiterate "superior" -- "force to those contained only in legislation. The bottom line is that nonentrenched rights of equal social and political significance are always subordinate to entrenched rights."

For that reason, it must be put in the Constitution. It must be returned to its place of prominence as a cornerstone of our democracy and our country.

The second and final reason -- I want to mention only two -- is one the member for Brock (Mr. Partington) touched on. As we know, Canada is a multicultural nation composed largely of immigrants, people such as my father, many other members of my community and, I am sure, other members in this House. The strength of this country and of this province is the fact that immigrants came to this country between the 1920s and 1950s with the hope that the democratic principles they left behind would be secure in this country and indeed enhanced.

Many immigrants came to this country because their homeland did not include those rights. Canada was a place of opportunity, a place of democracy. It meant the freedom that many of them did not have. It meant they would have the chance to grow in this country and, with God's help, to raise a family, possibly to start their own business and indeed to take great pride in owning some property. That is essentially what it is; aside from the economic aspects of it, it is a matter of pride.

Most of us in this House own some property, some more than others. I myself, with my wife and family, have a house. I take great pride in that. It is a nice feeling. I take more pride in the fact that I have some equity than I do when I consider the mortgage I still have on my house, but it is a good feeling. Having been a mortgage manager for 13 ½ years before I came into this House, I saw and experienced the joy and pride that many of these immigrants and young people experience when they own some property.

I am conscious that this is something very basic to human nature. I wish every Canadian could own some property. I think it is the duty of parliamentarians as legislators to assist in that regard to the best ability that God has given us. Unfortunately, that cannot always be done. Members of the third party would argue that no one should own any property; the government should own it all. Unfortunately, I disagree with that.

The people in my riding of Guelph are conscious of this right, extremely so, and in particular my many friends and acquaintances associated with the Guelph and District Real Estate Board. While they have an economic reason to promote real estate and property rights, I truly believe the real motivation is based on their belief that our democratic country was built on this inherent right, along with the other three.

I want to conclude by saying that now is the time for us to reconfirm the fourth cornerstone of democracy. Now is the time to re-establish many of the foundations that the immigrants, the new Canadians, thought they were coming to when they came to our great country. I wholeheartedly support the enshrinement of property rights in our Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and I wish to encourage all members of this House to support this very basic and important cornerstone of democracy.

11:50

Mr. Jackson: It is a privilege for me to rise from my seat today to respond to this excellent motion. For me, it is a matter of personal conviction. Prior to my entrance to this House, I was a member for 16 years of the real estate profession in this province. I was actively involved with the Ontario Real Estate Association in developing its private property week program and the entrenchment of this resolution. Several years ago, during that time, I had the privilege of meeting the member for Waterloo North for the first time, and I was very much impressed by his early commitment and sensitivity to this very important issue.

Today is Thanksgiving for our neighbours to the immediate south, and one of the prayers of thanksgiving they will be giving tonight is for the fact that in their Declaration of Independence and in their Constitution exists the very right we are addressing in this House today. Indeed, those who know the history of our great province and our great nation are aware that many of the very first Canadians who settled here were persecuted in their own countries because they believed strongly in certain rights. They came to this country and this province for that reason.

They put up with domestic hostilities, with the elements, with natural disasters. As the member for Wentworth (Mr. Dean) and I are all too keenly aware, there were even foreign invaders in our home town of Stoney Creek. They worked hard, and after all, there was the land. They toiled to clear the land to build an agricultural future and destiny for this province. At the end of each working day, these people had a feeling of pride and reverence for the land, which could not be removed. It was a bond that existed for them, and it represented a right they had. It helped to build this province and this nation.

Our forefathers could never have dreamed in their philosophies that the greatest threat to their land was yet to come. That was what we have seen evolve over the past 50 to 100 years in the way of the tremendous government intervention and the intrusion into basic human rights with respect to the reasonable enjoyment and privacy of their property.

It is clear that former Prime Minister John Diefenbaker felt that this was a historical and inalienable right, and it was included in the Diefenbaker Bill of Rights of 1960. There is one noteworthy subtle difference between that charter and the proposal represented by the member for Waterloo North. That reference is, "Everyone has the right to life, liberty, security of the person and enjoyment of property and the right not to be deprived thereof except by due process of law." The subtle change which the member has brought to his resolution reinforces and perhaps makes more contemporary the statement that was first made by John Diefenbaker.

I am somewhat concerned at the statement by the member for Nickel Belt. While I feel an abiding respect for him, it is frightening when we can hear in this chamber reference to a privilege being inserted for a basic human right and then there is a rationalization by members of the third party to try to remove the privilege from Ontario's citizens. That is a frightening concept.

The members of this chamber have been introduced to much of the hard work that the Ontario Real Estate Association has provided in regard to this issue in the past six to seven years. They are aware of the fact that the association, through an independent study by professors at the University of Western Ontario, helped to develop a document called Losing Ground. This was a completely independent study. It documented that more than 700 laws or parts of laws in one way or another placed restrictions on how property owners could use or enjoy their property.

We all agree that many laws are necessary and acceptable in a free, democratic society. However, some create confusion and intrusion into basic human rights. I had the privilege of representing the Ontario Real Estate Association on the Taylor Flood Plain Review Committee to examine how our conservation authorities, under the mandate they were operating with, were able to sterilize large tracts of land without meaningful consultation with the owners or even the municipalities. That is one example, and many others have been referred to in this House during the debate on this bill.

Aside from that, there was also the Fault Protection Act, which limits a farmer's opportunities to sell his property if he so desires. There are several of these laws.

This resolution calls for fairness and for bringing back a balance into the charter, and we hope we will have this amendment in our Charter of Rights and Freedoms by Canada's Thanksgiving next year.

In conclusion, I encourage all members to support the resolution of the member for Waterloo North, because the preservation of the rights to private property is the very keystone of the arch upon which all civilized governments rest.

Mr. Epp: Very quickly, I want to sum up some concerns I have. In doing that, I want to thank the member for Brock, the member for Wellington South (Mr. Ferraro), the member for Burlington South (Mr. Jackson) and the member for Nickel Belt, despite the fact that he was negative with respect to this resolution.

I want to deal with two or three aspects very quickly. One is his assertion that even the Reichmanns could then buy Prince Edward Island. As he and I know, this cannot be the case unless they decide to buy one parcel at a time and the laws of Prince Edward Island were to permit that. This resolution would not allow the Reichmanns --

Mr. Rae: No. You are wrong. It would have precedence over any provincial legislation.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Perhaps the members will show some respect to the member who is speaking.

Mr. Epp: For the member for York South, I want to quote a

section of the Constitution which says:

"The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society."

If he is trying to say the fathers of the Constitution would allow the Reichmanns to expropriate Prince Edward Island, he is off in left field, and he knows it.

The other thing I want to say is that we are protecting people's rights here. We are not protecting property in the sense that it is property; we are protecting people's rights to hold property. That is the distinction that has to be made. It is people we are concerned about, and the members have to understand that.

I will cite very quickly the various organizations that support this: the Canadian Bar Association, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, the Ontario Real Estate Association and the Canadian Institute of Planners. Various countries have also supported property rights entrenchment: Italy, West Germany, Sweden and Finland.

I reiterate to my friends across the way that British Columbia supported this, and that included all the NDP members in BC. The NDP members here are building a great valley between themselves and their colleagues in BC.

Mr. Mantel: All the right wing.

Mr. Speaker: If I could have the attention of the members, particularly that of the member for Sudbury East (Mr. Martel), the appropriate procedure now is to place the questions.

12:06 p.m.

LABOUR RELATIONS AMENDMENT ACT

The House divided on Mr. Mackenzie's motion for second reading of Bill 132, which was negatived on the following vote:

Ayes

Allen, Breaugh, Bryden, Charlton, Cooke, D. S., Foulds, Gigantes, Gillies, Gordon, Hennessy, Johnston, R. F., Laughren, Mackenzie, Martel, McClellan, Morin-Strom, Philip, Pouliot, Rae, Reville, Swart, Warner, Wildman.

Nays

Baetz, Barlow, Bennett, Bossy, Brandt, Callahan, Cooke, D. R., Cordiano, Dean, Epp, Ferraro, Fulton, Grandmaître, Gregory, Guindon, Haggerty, Harris, Henderson, Jackson, Johnson, J. M., Knight, Lane, McLean, McNeil, Miller, G. I, Morin, Newman, Partington, Pollock, Polsinelli, Rowe, Runciman, Sheppard, Smith, D. W., Sorbara, South, Sterling, Stevenson, K. R., Taylor, Villeneuve, Ward.

Ayes 23; nays 41.

12:15

PROPERTY RIGHTS

The House divided on Mr. Epp's motion of resolution 5, which was agreed to on the following vote:

Ayes

Baetz, Barlow, Bennett, Bossy, Brandt, Callahan, Cordiano, Dean, Epp, Ferraro, Fulton, Gillies, Gordon, Grandmaître, Gregory, Guindon, Haggerty, Harris, Henderson, Hennessy, Jackson, Johnson, J. M.;

Knight, Lane, Mancini, McFadden, McLean, McNeil, Miller, G. I, Morin, Newman, Partington, Pollock, Rowe, Runciman, Ruprecht, Sheppard, Smith, D. W., South, Stephenson, B. M., Sterling, Stevenson, K. R., Taylor, Villeneuve.

Nays

Allen, Bryden, Charlton, Cooke, D. S., Foulds, Gigantes, Johnston, R. F., Laughren, Mackenzie, Martel, McClellan, Morin-Strom, Philip, Pouliot, Rae, Reville, Sorbara, Swart, Warner, Wildman.

Ayes 44; nays 20.

The House recessed at 12:19 p.m.

AFTERNOON SITTING

The House resumed at 1:30 p.m.

MEMBERS' STATEMENTS

HIGHWAY CONSTRUCTION

Mr. Turner: I would like to draw to the attention of members of the House a matter that is of prime concern to the constituents of the Peterborough riding and the Peterborough area as such.

In May 1986, I spoke to the Minister of Transportation and Communications (Mr. Fulton) about a problem that was perceived on the construction of the four-laning of Highway 115 between Highway 401 to the south and Peterborough to the north. The minister replied on November 21, and I received the letter yesterday. Frankly, I was disappointed, dismayed, shocked and finally angered at the response he gave me.

In spite of commitments by the previous government and the demonstrated need for the four-laning of this highway, the minister has stated very clearly in his letter that the remainder of the work between Highways 7A and 35, a distance of 21 kilometres, at an estimated cost of $27 million, is not in the five-year construction program. I find this totally unacceptable and so do the people of the Peterborough riding.

UNEMPLOYMENT IN NORTHERN ONTARIO

Mr. Morin-Strom: When is this Toronto-based Liberal government going to wake up and do something about northern Ontario? There really are two economies in this province. Since the Liberals came into office 17 months ago, the economy in southern Ontario has continued to grow, while across the north we have gone in the opposite direction. Plants are closing and layoffs are increasing. No new development is occurring. The unemployment rate in northern Ontario is nearly double that in the south.

What has the government done? Very little except for studies and reports, conferences and media events. The government is looking at options for saving the 1,500 jobs threatened at the Goodyear plant in Metro Toronto, but there was never any commitment to do anything about the 1,500 workers losing their jobs at Algoma Steel. Tens of millions of dollars are committed to auto plants in communities across southern Ontario, but nothing is done to bring new industry to northern Ontario.

The lumber industry is in a state of siege. Hundreds of workers are out of work across the north as we offer the Americans first 10 per cent, now 15 per cent, and who knows where it will end. The Premier (Mr. Peterson) looks good by kicking the Prime Minister's incompetence at negotiating, but the Premier has not acted to help those communities that are suffering.

The New Democrats have laid out a 10-point program to help the north. The ideas are not new. They have been endorsed by northerners time and time again, in the Fahlgren report, in the Rosehart report and even in Liberal campaign promises. This government has responded with a zero-point program. We need this government to do something for the north now.

SHORELINE PROTECTION

Mr. McGuigan: It is my pleasure this afternoon to introduce to this Legislature a group of very dedicated men who over the past summer and fall have contributed their services to the people of Ontario. In the gallery today are Shannon Olsen, Ray Lavereau, Roger Vermeulen, John Plyley, Dr. Reid Kreutzwiser and our consultant, Doug Hodgins of MacLaren Plansearch, who along with the member for Haldimand-Norfolk (Mr. G. I. Miller) and myself formed the Shoreline Management Review Committee.

The gentlemen I have mentioned were very much interested and involved in the plight many Great Lakes shoreline communities are facing now and have faced over the past couple of years. While working as their chairman, I recognized immediately the value of their experience and insight. These men have all proven their dedication to assisting the government of Ontario in minimizing the damage and hardship that erosion, high water and storm flooding can cause and have caused.

Our report, which was delivered to the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Kerrio) and the Minister of Municipal Affairs (Mr. Grandmaître) earlier this month, culminated nearly eight months of speaking with the public and many hours of reviewing technical submissions.

When it is released, the committee's report will prove to those of this House who questioned our appointment that our intention was to give recommendations designed to be practical, beneficial, responsible and, above all, nonpolitical.

As this government wanted, the recommendations are for the good of all Ontarians.

HIGHWAY SAFETY

Mr. Hennessy: I address my statement to the Minister of Transportation and Communications. He probably does not want to hear this, but I can only hope it will jolt him into having immediate action taken on this important matter.

This year alone, which for the minister's benefit is 1986, there have been 68 traffic accidents on the Thunder Bay Expressway. These personal injury and property damage accidents have occurred at 10 intersections along the expressway.

For the minister's information, I will tell him why these accidents happened. Drivers enter the Thunder Bay Expressway at highway speeds, unaware that they will shortly encounter numerous intersections controlled only by amber lights. Drivers turning into the expressway have to take their chances on whether they will live to make the turn.

Why will the minister not listen to the corporation of the city of Thunder Bay? Why will the minister not listen to the Thunder Bay Professional Fire Fighters Association? Why will the minister not listen to the people of Thunder Bay in the north? We need concrete highway dividers. We need advance signal change warning lights about a quarter of a mile away from the intersections to warn drivers that the signal ahead will be changing. We need extra vapour lights along the expressway so that people can see what is ahead.

The minister's lack of determination and leadership is killing the people in Thunder Bay. We expect some action on the expressway problem.

OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY

Mr. Martel: I want to make another statement about the swamp. My friend the Minister of Labour (Mr. Wrye) saw a bill go through committee several weeks ago, second reading of a bill on behalf of the city of Windsor. In addition to a number of other things, it included right-to-know legislation for the city of Windsor. The city wanted it and the committee passed it. Apparently, the minister would not allow the bill to be called for third reading; so the government House leader had to send it back to committee to have that part eliminated.

This is the man who says he represents labour. The Windsor area has the highest incidence of illness and sickness in Ontario. This Minister of Labour knew full well that the bill contained a sunset clause whereby the Windsor bill would die when the federal legislation came into existence. This Minister of Labour withdrew that protection for people in the Windsor area to have right-to-know legislation in place from this day forward, and who were prepared to allow that legislation to die once the federal legislation was in place.

This Minister of Labour is an absolute disgrace.

LIBERAL-NEW DEMOCRATIC PARTY ACCORD

Mr. Henderson: I rise to inform the House that the accord is alive and well. I thank the leader of the third party the member for York South (Mr. Rae) for the very kind letter I received from him yesterday. The member welcomes me to the only party that is on my side and puts my interests first, the Ontario New Democratic Party. What a pleasure it is to hear those words. I need all the help I can get.

Some doctors in Ontario have despaired of finding a political party on their side. They have a friend in the member for York South. I broke the news to some, and I would not be here long were I to quote their responses.

The member goes on to say: "We have brought the Liberal horse to the well. It still does not want to drink." I know just how he feels, and yet he should be so lucky to have gotten it there. I too tried to bring the Liberal horse to the well, and it would not drink for me either.

I am truly delighted to learn that the third party is on my side and puts my interests first. No other party has ever made that claim. This is the accord at its very finest.

HIGHWAY CONSTRUCTION

Mr. Stevenson: The delay in highway construction is causing a serious problem in my riding as well. The delay in building Highway 89 south of Lake Simcoe, and in particular east of Lake Simcoe, has caused congestion and confusion in the area.

More important, along Highway 48, through the village of Virginia and near the Morning Glory Public School, we have a real traffic problem with heavy trucks passing on the right-hand shoulder and causing a great deal of concern among local travellers and parents whose children are coming and going from that school.

We have had two meetings regarding this issue, and so far there is still no positive move from the minister. The people would like to see this problem clarified.

13:39

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY AND RESPONSES

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

Hon. Mr. Scott: Later today I will introduce for first reading the Members' Standards of Office Act, 1986. Last July, the Premier spoke to the assembly about conflict of interest and set in motion a process to review the current guidelines and to consider proposals for reform. The Honourable John Black Aird kindly agreed to carry out the task and presented his report to the Premier in September.

The bill I introduce today recognizes the need for legislated standards. It adopts the basic wisdom of the approach recommended by Mr. Aird. The bill has four elements.

First, a clear, comprehensive and objective definition of a conflict of interest is provided and a concise code of conduct for members established. Second, a broad disclosure rule is declared for all assembly members, their spouses and minor children. Third, a system is established to make available to members, advice that they can follow with confidence and certainty. Fourth, a method to determine and sanction breaches of the standard is established.

Although Mr. Aird's recommendations were directed to ministers, we propose to extend most standards to all members of the Legislative Assembly. This reflects the importance we attach to the role of each member of the assembly. Moreover, it is consistent with the provisions of the Legislative Assembly Act governing members' conduct and with conflict legislation in almost every other province.

First, the definition of conflict of interest in the code of conduct: The bill declares that a conflict of interest exists when a member makes a decision in relation to his or her public duty in the knowledge that there is an opportunity to further his or her private interest. This is an objective test. It both protects the public interest and provides meaningful guidance for members.

The bill sets out a code of conduct for all members. As one example, they will all be prohibited from using confidential information or the influence of their office to further private interest. Additional restrictions are placed on members of the executive council. As a general matter, they cannot engage in professional practice, carry on a business or hold outside office.

The bill applies to parliamentary assistants only as members, because their role is largely defined by the ministers they assist. Confidential staff are not covered by the bill since it regulates only the conduct of members, but members will continue to be responsible for their confidential staff. Further, the bill does not attempt to deal with the question of whether individuals who serve as paid lobbyists should be subject to some form of regulation. I regard the issue of lobbyists as separate and distinct from the matter of the proper conduct of members of the assembly. The appropriate response to the issue of lobbyists is currently under study in the ministry.

Second, the disclosure rules: Following the principles in the Aird report, the bill imposes stringent disclosure requirements on all members. Every member must disclose all assets, liabilities and income without exception to a commissioner appointed under the bill. We believe that only complete disclosure will protect the member from the pitfall of guessing what must be disclosed and what is exempt from disclosure. The commissioner will then prepare a public disclosure statement, which will be filed with the assembly and be available for public inspection.

The same disclosure requirements apply to the spouse and minor children of each member. As Mr. Aird recognized, this presents a difficult issue. We must not only respect but also promote the economic independence of spouses. At the same time, Ontario family law recognizes that spouses share a community of economic interest. Therefore, we propose that in exchange for complete disclosure, spouses will be free to carry on their business or professional life without restriction.

The use of the so-called blind trust as an alternative to full disclosure received considerable attention in the Aird report. Mr. Aird stated that he preferred to avoid the use of blind trusts in favour of full disclosure of a minister's business dealings. Mr. Aird considered recommending the abolition of blind trusts altogether. In the end, however, he decided that such arrangements still had some utility.

In our view, the blind trust mechanism requires a blind faith in its opaqueness that the citizens of this province are no longer able to share. Accordingly, this bill makes no provision for blind trusts as an alternative to full disclosure. At the same time, we do not believe that a minister, on taking office, should be required to divest, that is, to sell off or dispose of all his assets. To so require would effectively discourage those who have been successful in previous careers from entering public life. In any event, divestment might well be impossible or involve grave financial hardship.

Thus the bill provides for a management trust that, during office, will manage the minister's business. Under this arrangement, the trustee must be at arm's length with the member and must be approved by the independent commissioner appointed under the act.

Mr. Sterling: Like Greg Sorbara's brother.

Hon. Mr. Kerrio: Like Gordon Walker's wife.

Hon. Mr. Scott: I will read the sentence again for the honourable member. Under this arrangement, the trustee must be at arm's length with the member and must be approved by the independent commissioner appointed under the act. The trustee is prohibited by law from consulting with the minister in respect of the management of the trust property. However, material changes in the trust holding must be reported to the minister and to the commissioner. The aim is twofold: to prevent the minister from interfering with the management of the trust and to ensure that the minister knows the actual trust holdings.

He will then be responsible for avoiding conflict of interest in relation to those holdings.

The cornerstone of the bill is the office of the commissioner, to which I have already referred. Both the Aird report and the report of the standing committee on public accounts emphasized the need for an independent office to provide advice to members with respect to their duties. Under the bill, the commissioner, who will be an officer of the assembly, will provide advice to members regarding their obligations, investigate alleged breaches of the act and recommend sanctions in cases where the act has been breached.

By giving the commissioner this complete range of functions, the bill provides the fullest possible opportunity for members to fulfil their obligations. They will have advice available to them on a regular basis and they will be able to seek immediate advice on situations as they arise. Most important, they will have the necessary assurance that if they have fully and frankly consulted the commissioner and followed his advice, the commissioner will not find the member in breach of the legislation.

Members will be at risk only where they fail to consult the commissioner fully and frankly or where they ignore the advice. Thus, it will be entirely within the member's power to avoid contravention of the act.

In Mr. Aird's view, there was no need for specific sanctions. The glare of publicity following release of the commissioner's report would, in his opinion, expose the member to the censure of the electorate and the member's party. There is much to be said in favour of Mr. Aird's approach. However, at this unique point in Canadian legislative history, public confidence in government probably requires the support of a definite sanctioning power. Within the context of our approach, it is obvious that the commissioner is in the best position to assess a member's conduct.

The role of the commissioner in interpreting the requirements of the act and advising members on matters of compliance will ensure that consistent standards are applied in determining breaches of the legislation. For members, fairness means consistency. They will have the assurance that if they have acted in good faith and sought and followed the advice of the commissioner, they will not be subjected to a different tribunal operating on different assumptions and making different

interpretations.

The commissioner will have the power to recommend a specific sanction, ranging from a reprimand, to restitution, to loss of the seat and prohibition against immediate re-election. It will then be in the hands of the assembly whether the commissioner's recommended sanction should be adopted and enforced against the member. Ultimately, the fate of the member, though guided by the commissioner, will then be determined by the collective will of all the members whose integrity is compromised by the misconduct of any individual member.

In our view, the standards of conduct of members of this assembly are already high. There is no need for a set of unnecessarily harsh restrictions that will discourage individuals of high calibre and integrity from seeking public office. Instead, what is needed is a clearly defined set of rules to serve as a guidepost to members as well as a mechanism for resolving doubtful cases. This bill seeks to provide those missing elements. It is an approach that is simple, fair and reasonable. I am confident it will, if enacted, enhance public confidence in government in the province.

Mr. Harris: I want to respond to the statement made by the Attorney General on conflict-of-interest legislation. He does not call it that now; it is the Members' Standards of Office Act.

Mr. McClellan: The members are in conflict.

Hon. Mr. Kerrio: We are all in this together.

Mr. Harris: Yes, we are all in this together; there is no doubt about that.

The problems that have developed with this government did not develop with guidelines that were not sufficient. They did not develop with guidelines that were fuzzy, as some have put forward. They developed with the cavalier attitude of the Premier, and the government led by the Premier and his cabinet, towards any guidelines, regardless of what those guidelines were.

Conflict of interest is a matter of common sense. It is not a difficult matter to determine whether somebody has breached a conflict of interest. It is something that is difficult to define in law, as many of these laws are, but it is simple to interpret actions of common sense. It is that attitude that has caused the problems for this government, and now it is trying to duck its responsibility with this ridiculous bill that is being introduced today. I call it "ridiculous" without even having seen it. However, based on the statement, it appears as though that is the way it is going to be.

Mr. Aird stated that Blenus Wright was not successful in ensuring compliance, but now we are going to have another commissioner who will be successful in ensuring compliance. No rule or no individual commissioner is going to ensure compliance. The responsibility falls on the government; it falls on the Premier. The Premier's attitude from the beginning and his attitude as reflected through his cabinet is where it falls. No bill, no amount of deflection and no amount of this silliness take away from that responsibility.

I will have to take a look at the bill before I comment on the back-benchers' part. I do not know what he is putting in there, but it does not appear to me that back-benchers are the ones who make decisions on expenditures of the crown or decisions on where expenditures will be made, where contracts will be going or the rest of it. I fail to see how they are going to be covered, but it may be that the Attorney General has come up with a way. I will wait until I see the bill.

Parliamentary assistants are entirely responsible for all the regulations of the government. They have access to all the confidential information, or potentially all of it. The only reason they do not is if the minister does not trust them and, in the case of this government, I understand that may very well be the case with some. For those people who are going to be ministers, who have access to that information and who are responsible for all the regulations, to be excluded is absolutely ridiculous.

This is a matter of judgement, a judgement of the person who makes the appointments. It is the judgement of the Premier. I know some of my colleagues want to comment on it. Let me finish by saying there is an old Hungarian saying, and I think it applies here: "The fish stinks from the head." That is the problem the government has had and will continue to have.

Mr. Pope: I find it fitting that the Premier was not present today as the Attorney General (Mr. Scott) of this province gave the formal admission of failure when it comes to this problem and the way this government has handled it. This is a government that said, when it came into office, it would be squeaky clean. All of us have spent the past six months looking at conflict-of-interest problems that have arisen in that cabinet.

This government said that all the t's would be crossed and all the i's dotted. Then we had the Premier of this province admitting that he never took the time to administer or enforce the conflict-of-interest guidelines. This is a Premier and a government that said they would be open. Then we found that they secretly rewrote the guidelines in 1985 and never bothered telling the public. This is an admission of failure of this government on one of the most important elements of basic democratic government, the trust and confidence of the public, the people of this province, in their cabinet ministers. This Premier and this government have totally failed and breached the public faith.

Hon. Mr. Sorbara: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: I want to raise one quick point of order based on the comments of the opposition House leader. It proves he is living in history. He refers to the fact that parliamentary assistants are in charge of all regulations. That may have been the process with the previous government, but as chairman of the regulations committee of cabinet, I take --

Mr. Speaker: Order. That is not a point of order; it is a point of information.

Mr. Breaugh: I want to reply to the Attorney General's announcement today. Before I do, I want to express a small measure of regret. He sent the Aird report out to the standing committee on the Legislative Assembly. It would have been a reasonable thing to co-ordinate the response from the committee, which is virtually finished, with the introduction of legislation. He chose not to do that. I regret that. I think that was a move which he will himself regret in large measure shortly. He cannot treat committees of this Legislature in that way, with that kind of disdain.

If he wants us to do the work on reports, such as this one on conflict of interest, he has at least to do the decent thing and allow the committee to report. That committee's job is just about done. In going through his statement today, I found there were not a great many areas where the committee will be apart from the government's initiatives.

I want to make two quick points. One is that it was an unfair and stupid thing to do. Perhaps it was done because the government does not know how to run the show yet. Surely it should have people around it who will tell it that there is a committee report coming in next week and that it would be appropriate to wait one more week before introducing legislation. The government is going to regret that. That is going to cause it some problems.

I do not know who makes up the titles of the government's acts, but to call this one the Members' Standards of Office Act is surely crazy. That is not what the government is talking about; it is talking about conflict-of-interest legislation. It would do the world a favour if it would just name the bill for what it is.

Let me go through quickly in response to what the minister had to say, because I do not think there will be complete unanimity about this. I think the committee will agree that disclosure is the cornerstone of it all. Complete, public disclosure is the fallback position that the minister will have to put in place. I caution all members that it is going to be complete and public, which is going to be uncomfortable. It is also going to have an element in it that will not be dissimilar to what most American jurisdictions do.

In the